Wuthering Nights by Summer Day continues... I probably won't post again until next week so I'm adding extra chapters! (*please remember I have used UK English and punctuation to re-tell this classic story... mixed with vampires!)
Chapter Three
Kate
and Heath
After
Mr and Mrs Spencer separated, Hareton Hall was never the same. Mutual
loneliness, secrets and headstrong natures had drawn Heath and Kate into an
alliance. The days went by and as they grew together, the children craved
freedom.
One cold day in November Kate and Heath lay
side by side on Hampstead Heath making starfish in the snow. There was no sun
as usual. Their arms and legs reached out forming windmills in the ice, so that
their fingers almost touched.
‘Kate?’ the small boy asked as he sat up
and wrapped his scarf around his neck and ears. He had dark hair and blue eyes
and was as strikingly good looking as the girl, with her midnight curls and
icy, reddened cheeks. Both of them had perfectly white teeth from their
frequent trips to the dentist and Heath, in eighteen months, had learnt how to
control his fangs, perfectly. Now that he was a little older, he never revealed
them in public and they didn’t need to be filed anymore.
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘I wish Harrison would stop picking on us.’
‘Me too, he’s…mean. Every time he comes home
from school I dread it. He takes over the house and pinches me and locks me in
my room when no one is about. Ever since mother…I can’t say the words,’ she
said as she put her small hand to her mouth and Heath noticed a tear drying on
her face. The recent abandonment of Kate by her mother had not overly concerned
Heath, since the woman had had nothing to do with him on a daily basis and had
shown little interest in his upkeep. But he understood how it felt to be left
and reached out to commiserate with Kate.
That first night, after Mrs Spencer left,
Kate and Heath had played with the train set until, eyes heavy, they fell
asleep together on the floor. Greta had placed a pillow under each small head.
Ever after, they slept near each other or on opposite sides of the wall. They
made hand puppet shows in the moonlight on the walls of the play room and Heath
always let Kate win at games.
‘Don’t cry,’ Heath told Kate that day in
the Hampstead meadow. ‘You have to be strong. If you cry, your tears will turn
to crystal in this weather and freeze on your face. Imagine how awful that
would look. Yuck.’
Kate laughed. ‘Perhaps it’s for the best.
You can save my crystal tears in a jar,’ she joked.
‘I don’t like it when you cry,’ Heath said,
wiping the tears from her face.
Kate sat up and sniffed into her coat
sleeve.
The
boy took her mittened hand.
‘Never cry again, Kate. We must be stronger
than that, stronger than them.’
‘Stronger than this?’
Kate rolled up the edge of her jeans to
where her knee showed the beginnings of a scab and a remarkably deep bruise.
‘It happened when Harrison kicked me because
I wouldn’t give him the riding whip father bought me for my birthday. I was
afraid he’d whip Hero too much.’
To her surprise, Heath moved forward,
leaned over her leg, touched the scab and moved closer, almost as if he was
going to lick it.
‘That’s gross,’ Kate said, ‘you were going
to kiss it better like Greta would. , I hate kisses, unless I’m the one giving
them!’ the girl announced, pulling her leg closer.
Heath looked very dejected and turned his
face away.
Kate smiled; glad to have evoked such a
strong reaction. She was ‘quite the little exhibitionist’, as Greta told her
once.
‘I’m only kidding! Gotcha…’ Kate smiled.
Heath grudgingly turned to face her.
Kate covered her knee and changed the
subject. ‘I heard you playing guitar this morning. I can hear you from my room
when I wake up. You play much better than Harrison.’
Heath beamed with pride. He wasn’t used to
hearing praise before he’d moved to The Hall. His only real problem was his
adopted brother.
As if reading his thoughts, Kate said, ‘Never
mind, we’ll get Harrison back one of these days. C’mon, I’ll race you to the
bus stop. I found some coins in Harrison’s coat pocket when he was sleeping.
Now we can go and buy sweeties…’
Heath didn’t want to disappoint her with his
unnatural lack of desire for sugary lollies.
Instead, Heath picked up a stick and used it
to plough through the snow quickly. He withheld the urge, like small children
sometimes have, to bash the flower beds because he was fairly sure Kate
wouldn’t approve. In this way, the children civilized and complimented one
another’s personalities.
‘One day, when we’re grown up…I’ll take care
of you, Kate,’ he said.
‘Silly, you take care of me already…’
‘When we’re grown up we’ll get married.’
‘Even sillier, we’re brother and sister.’
‘Not really. We’re not actually related.’
The boy was annoyed his suggestion had not
been taken seriously. He reached into his pocket and dragged out a remarkably
fresh, although slightly crumpled, wildflower.
‘I’ve been saving this all morning to give
to you,’ he said, handing her the daisy.
‘Thank you,’ she said, dismissively. Kate
was already thinking about how easily they could avoid going to school and go
straight to the sweet shop instead.
The boy picked up his brown leather
satchel and headed to the bus stop, ignoring Kate as he walked past her. ‘That
will teach her a lesson,’ he thought.
‘Stop! Now you are being the silly one,’
the girl said. ‘We both know we’re not really brother and sister.’
Heath smiled at Kate as she took his hand.
The frozen winds played with their hair and both children forgot their
conversation as they ran to stop the bus as it moved forward. The little boy
was amazed at how fast he’d begun to run, almost merging in double quick time
across the meadow. He had to wait at the bus stop for the girl to catch up.
Chapter Four
The
Grange
It was so cold Greta noticed Kate’s breath
first as she entered the kitchen and placed her school bag on the floor. Heath
dawdled behind his eye-catching counterpart. Kate was meticulous about her
appearance. Her perfect curls lay in bunches behind her ears, tied in royal
blue ribbons, the colours of her school. Her long socks were not rippled as
other children’s were. In fact, the uniform she wore was in good condition,
unstained and nearly uncrushed. Greta looked at Kate again. She knew that after
her mother had fled, literally fled the house one night to go gallivanting
around Europe with a man she’d met in
rehab, Kate had become unmanageable - but bunking school? She really didn’t
know what to do about this.
From the moment Kate had been born her Papa
had indulged her every childish whim, much to the displeasure of her mother who
worried that the child would be spoiled and difficult, like Harrison. Well, he
was in boarding school where Kate would surely be sent soon, just as her older
brother had been.
As for the “wild child”, as Greta thought
of him, he looked completely unkempt – shirt hanging out, hair unbrushed, knees
scratched. He ran upstairs to Kate’s bedroom (a converted ballroom) or to his
own, the more modestly sized room opposite, to play video games and listen to
music. The children would lounge around on the floor (strewn with the striped
wrappers of Kate’s favourite boiled sweets) in the afternoons. They ate and
listened to music, hardly bothering to even attempt their homework.
Heath had long ago discovered the path
around the side of the house, through the kitchen door where the new au pair
was standing and peeling potatoes for dinner. He fled past their elderly
gardener and crept inside the kitchen, thinking he might sneak past, but Greta
was too quick. She grabbed him by the hands.
‘Wait…’
‘What Greta?’
‘Don’t say “what”, I know what you’ve been
doing…or rather not doing.’
‘You just said “what”…’
‘That’s not what I meant…’
‘Said it again…’
‘Oh, you little rascal…’
Heath sighed.
‘What is it Greta?’
‘You haven’t been to school, have you? You
and Kate have been gallivanting on the High Street. I can’t believe you’ve not
been detained by police! The meadow must be too freezing even for both of
you…scamps. And look at that bruise on your leg, Kate.’
Kate moved behind the bench protectively.
She didn’t want Greta to have too much knowledge about the behind-the-scenes
household warfare.
‘If that’s Harrison’s doing, I told you to
tell me if he ever tries to hit either of you again! He’s twice your age.
Honestly, I don’t know what this family has come to ever since your mother
left. I’ll be calling social services next…or they’ll be calling me…’
‘Oh don’t do that Greta. I just…knocked
into something when I was out riding…at pony club.’
Heath looked at Kate quickly, knowing if
they told on Harrison again, it would only make matters worse the next time he
came home.
‘I told you to tell me if that older
brother of yours so much as raises his voice. He wouldn’t dare do it in my
presence. But that doesn’t give either of you an excuse to avoid school. It’s a
good thing Harrison is going away to University. By then, he won’t even be
coming home for holidays…’
Heath and Kate were too quick. Greta talked
on whilst they ate everything on the kitchen countertop behind her.
When Greta stopped talking, Kate took a
bottle of fizzy drink and Heath grabbed a packet of Parma ham and they raced up
the stairs, rejoicing in the time when their play room was empty of responsible
adults (almost always). They had the whole ancient second floor to themselves
in the afternoons. They could play their games or crawl outside, along the
ledge that connected them to the ground and the road that led them to The
Grange. Heath liked to go fishing in the stream and learned to make an open
fire and cook the food on it. He was more and more interested in living in this
natural, primal way, even at such a young age.
Annabelle and Edmund Hunt were the same age
as Heath and Kate and their nearest neighbours. They were so stuck up neither
Heath nor Kate had ever spoken to them. The blonde girl had poked her tongue
out at Kate once during ballet lessons at the local church hall. Neither of the
girls had spoken to each another since.
Kate and Heath lived in a world of their
own - a world with a secret language and two rooms that adjoined each other
with archaic light fittings, tall ceilings and furniture passed down through
generations. There was a shabby
opulence surrounding their secret society of two. Kate’s room had a canopied
bed with cream sheets and a blanket and an old fashioned cream lace doll.
On occasions when the neighbourhood
children were invited to tea, the doll’s house intrigued all of Kate’s jealous
little acquaintances (mainly from school). But Kate never let Heath catch her
staring at the perfect dolls in their pristine world longingly. She knew he’d
think envy beneath her.
As he grew older, he became tougher and
more boisterous, wanting to be outside more than inside which, Greta reasoned,
was only natural in an almost twelve-year old boy. Heath remembered little of his
origins. It was as if he’d only ever existed in Kate’s world, something he knew
to be untrue. Yet Kate’s father was the
only father he remembered. Mr Spencer had been kind to him so he loved him as
he loved Kate. But he knew her father was not his real father and that the
“blood” running through his veins had some kind of magic in it. He felt
different to other boys his age - happier roaming the woods than sitting in a classroom.
Harrison, in his final year of school, was
still a problem. Once, when he was home from school for a weekend and Mr
Spencer was at a business conference in Brussels, Greta was called away for the
afternoon. Kate’s older brother rounded up the children after she left and
locked them together in the attic after inviting some of his older school
friends round to party. Harrison thought it would be fun to terrify the “little
kids”. Neither Kate nor Heath rewarded him with their tears but there had been
an all-out fight in the hallway after the children had somehow managed to break
the lock. Harrison hadn’t expected this but it was the last time he
underestimated Heath’s strength.
When Kate’s father arrived home early, only
to discover Heath and Kate amidst a mess of teen partying and chaos, he hit the
roof. Mr Spencer packed Harrison off to the strictest boy’s boarding school in
the South of England to complete his finals. It was a place where corporal
punishment was yet to be banned another reason for the older brother to harbour
resentment against the smaller children. They were soon to be packed off to
Scotland, to a co-educational school, strict but far less rigid than where
Harrison was going.
It was summer by then; Mr Spencer had grown
frail just as Heath and Kate grew stronger and taller.
Hampstead was quiet. It was as if the
entire borough had gone on holiday. Heath had taken to staying outside but on
one particular rainy and overcast day, Kate took an entire chicken and a jug of
orange juice out of the fridge and set out lunch in the upstairs playroom.
They sat together, enjoying their meal
that last Saturday before they were due to board the train to Scotland. Both Kate and Heath had grown more studious
in preparation for boarding school. They even finished reading the required
list of books, lying on their backs, in the window seats of the playroom. Kate
smiled at Heath - sometimes she thought her father had brought Heath home to be
her exclusive friend.
September arrived after an endless summer of
reading and night swimming in the indoor pool. The day before they were due to
leave for Scotland, bright sun shone through the bay windows. Heath,
uncomfortable, pulled his amulet close to his chest. His eyes felt sensitive to
the light.
‘C’mon children,’ Greta said, wanting to
make their last day at Hareton Hall memorable. ‘Rise and shine. It’s a lovely
day. Why don’t we all take a picnic
outside and go to Hampstead Heath? School doesn’t start until Monday. C’mon, get
dressed.’
The children were excited as they pulled on
their shoes.
In the parklands, Greta spread the checked
blanket out on the lavender field under an umbrella and the children hungrily
heaped food on plates. Heath got bitten by ants but barely made a peep even
when Greta soothed his calf with warm tea. The boy had never known such care
and in all his young years, never seen a spread of such magnificence. He ate
three pieces of turkey, a chicken leg, ham, a left over chop, a slice of bacon
and a huge glass of orange juice. Kate and Greta drank tea and ate most of the
cucumber sandwiches.
Afterwards, the children went running to
the ponds to feed the ducks. As Greta lay reading a magazine, Kate and Heath
discovered the hidden conservatory in a secluded part of the park. It was like
being in another world, one far removed from London or Spain or family fighting
or anywhere they had ever known - a glass palace with a covered in roof and
shards of dappled, muted light (not enough to make Heath’s skin burn). The
building was filled with remarkable tropical trees and flowers growing in an
adjusted temperature. There were even garden chairs to sit on and stare in
wonderment at the magical surroundings. Both children thought the same thing;
that they’d found a remarkable secret, a place where they could hide…and
meet.
Chapter Five
Edmund
and Annabelle
This secluded section of Hampstead Heath
also led to a hidden laneway that attached Hareton Hall to The Grange. Kate and
Heath ran down the lane and it brought them out in the garden of the
neighbouring property. They laughed when they saw their neighbours, Edmund and
Annabelle, in the distance. Viewed through the low, floor-length windows of the
Grange, the Hunt siblings were taking private dancing lessons. Heath had never
seen a ballet class and thought the whole thing was hysterically funny. Kate
thought it was rather beautiful, but she would never admit that. The Grange was
a world beyond billowing cream curtains where all seemed tranquil and safe.
When the dance teacher tried to demonstrate with Edmund, how to partner, Heath
literally fell on the ground laughing.
‘Who’s out there?’ Edmund shouted, turning
towards the window. Heath and Kate crouched out of sight, beneath the sill.
‘Mind you keep your eyes up here while we
are dancing,’ the woman, wearing leg warmers and a tight hair bun, scolded him.
Edmund reluctantly looked away. Annabelle glanced up when the teacher wasn’t
looking and noticed two children. The boy looked vaguely familiar to her, about
the same age, running away from the house in the long grass. The girl tumbled
in the heather and before long they were laughing and running, fading into the
meadow.
If anyone had asked, Annabelle would have
described them as the opposite of her and her brother; free. The blonde girl
wished she could join them. Instead, her glacial, childish image, secured in
tight ballet slippers and pink ribbons, her unsmiling yet lovely face, mocked
her in the mirror.
That night, Heath lay awake under the
covers of his bed, his school trunk packed, his uniforms tagged with his
initials, perfectly starched and ironed.
The summer wind outside howled through the trees and rain fell softly on
the roof. He could see shadows of the branches outside. A breeze swept through the heath across the
pond and along the heather fields. Then all he could hear were the traces of
it, and in those traces, a whisper, and in that whisper, the sound of a tap at
his door.
Kate came wandering into his room with her
hair in curlers as she wanted to make a good “first day” impression at her new
school.
‘You look ridiculous,’ Heath said. ‘Go back
to bed. You know Greta has warned you about not distracting me now that we are
going to be in separate houses at our new school.’
Kate, hurt, turned and walked out of the
room. Heath was sorry to have been so mean but how could he explain his issues
to Kate? Lately, the desire to sink his teeth into her wrist was becoming
stronger. He’d been taking his medication twice a day and was just about to
take his evening dose when Kate arrived to tell him her hopes and dreams for
the future. She’d gone back to her room,
crawled upon her quilted bed and fallen asleep, listening to the storm rage
outside her window.
Late, very late that night, the young girl
woke to the sound of the screaming trees and the branches thrashing the window
pane. She would not be rejected this time and opened the connecting door to
find Heath fast asleep.
‘Heath,’ Kate whispered. ‘Wake up.’
‘What’s wrong?’ the boy said, crawling out
from the sleeping bag he slept in for security – the one Greta had tried, with
little success, to take away from him
these past six years.
‘I had a dream about us.’
‘Shh. Go back to sleep, Kate.’
‘I dreamt I was left outside in the rain,
freezing in winter. I cut my arm on your window and it bled and hurt and I had
to beg you to let me inside…’
Heath groaned. ‘Don’t say things like that
Kate. I would never hurt you.’ He moved uncomfortably, the venom sometimes
pulsed more strongly in his blood at night, but he’d never told anyone this.
‘Go back to sleep, Kate. It’s almost morning. You know Greta doesn’t like it
when you come in here anymore…’ He was due to take his morning vitamins, and
then he’d be sure to feel normal for at least eight hours…
Heath rolled over. Kate hovered again and
began to cry as she rocked his sleeping bag, forcing him to open his eyes.
‘Heath, Heath, wake up.’ He rolled over
unwillingly. ‘Promise me…promise me something.’
‘Alright, I promise, now go back to
sleep.’
‘Promise me, if that ever happens, you’ll
let me in.’
‘Heath smiled and shook his head sleepily,
‘I promise. Now go back to bed.’ Heath took his capsules from the bedside table
and gulped them down in the morning light.
Kate crawled beside him, dragging her
blanket around her, as he turned over. The girl gained comfort from her
nightmare only when she managed to rest her head in the crook of the reluctant
boy’s shoulder.
Chapter Six
Katarina
– Present Day
After a relatively comfortable sleep and
the beginnings of an unusual story told to me by Greta Gardner as I sat by the
fire in the owner’s favourite chair, I was more than intrigued. I finally visited
The Hall the next morning, cited the property, spoke briefly to the owner
regarding matters of importance and took down the details required. I was then,
surprisingly, invited to dinner at the pub the following week to finish up our
business. As I drove out of the gravel driveway and slowly passed the pub, I
saw that it was closed for the morning. I imagined the fireside warmly lit in
the evening and the owner, who harboured his own secrets, sitting in my
place…
That evening, Heath sat in his favourite
armchair, reading the newspaper with more interest than he usually showed. He
had the look of a burnt out rock star in his late twenties, still handsome and
relatively young. He called his dog to heel and turned to sit at his chair near
the fire. Greta was nowhere in sight; she’d gone home earlier to take care of
her own children. A barman had taken her place.
Heath was sipping ale and still reading
the newspaper when he heard a gaggle of shrieking teenagers who instantly
irritated him. It was legal to drink at eighteen but he wondered why - girls
dressed like tramps in denim shorts and black tights chugging down alcohol was
a negative result. He should have imposed a dress code, he thought gruffly. Society
had really gone downhill since the nineties. Then he remembered some of the
looks of that era were pretty bad, too. He must be getting old, he thought,
although no one would have known it. His face was harder but retained the
handsome, boyish features of his youth. Recently, since turning thirty-nine,
he’d felt quite ancient. Yet many of his business associates assumed he was
much younger than he really was. There was no point in an explanation,
revealing the secret of his youth.
He resigned to gruffly patting his dog and
when he looked up the teenaged girls began joking around, making more noise
than before. One of them, with long blonde hair and too much black mascara,
waved at him. He turned away and stoked the fire. He wondered where their parents
were and felt annoyed that his candle-lit lair was being infiltrated by the
local riff raff. He looked back at his paper and shook his head.
His own son, annoyingly public school
educated and hopelessly addicted to clubbing and drinking and smart-mouthing
him, would no doubt have tried to chat them up. Heath had mostly, throughout
his bizarre and unexpected life, been interested in people who at least seemed
the same age as he really was. Since school, he’d felt people who hadn’t lived
as much of the journey as he had, had less to teach him. There was also the
inevitable problem of his lack of ageing. People had started to notice. One of
his old school acquaintances had asked him if he was on human growth hormones.
Hard living had taken its toll but Heath
would never look older than thirty. His specialist told him that,
realistically, he shouldn’t expect to physically age more than twenty-six years
(the age when his bones stopped growing and his venom fully matured). His
sleeplessness kept him looking closer to thirty. The only thing that could
finish him was a prolonged dose of sunlight or a stake through his heart, but
agelessness, immortality was becoming a problem. His friends and associates
looked a decade older. The longer he stayed in Hampstead, the more the whispers
grew until they became openly hostile questions.
Heath flicked past the entertainment
section in the paper, highlighting yet another vapid celebrity. His gaze then
rested on the financial columns of the newspaper.
Normally these articles would have bored
him but since the most recent financial crisis, he’d found them a lot more
interesting. The companies he’d bought and discarded prior to 2008 had made him
very rich, even richer than the acquisition of land and residential property.
He was so wealthy that he only kept the Hampstead house out of sentiment. Just
the thought of being nostalgic at his age, when some were just beginning family
life, made him question his own sanity.
The candle on the low table near him flickered
and his dog barked, unexpectedly, causing Heath to look up from his paper; what
he saw made him catch his breath for the first time in years.
Kate’s face.
The hair was lighter and straighter, but
the face and body were the same. Her eyes were identical. Dark brown and large
with long black lashes, hiding secrets he had only learnt once: same height,
same face, same voice. His breath was taken away with a low sigh and he knew if
he didn’t speak to this woman… who was barely more than a girl, he would regret
it forever. Still, it would take another drink to work up the courage.
The girl, in her long cream scarf looked up
and matched his gaze. In the minute it took for Heath to decide whether to
speak with her, the band played that song Kate loved….
‘It’s
my favourite,’ Kate had said, laughing as she swapped earphones and grabbed
Heath’s hand in the clandestine meeting they’d had in the ten minutes before
morning classes started. ‘You can’t imagine how much I love this song,’ she added,
dragging him through the school hall making a sunny spectacle of
herself…wearing way too much eyeliner to get through the day without detention.
The girl was the image of Kate, yet not
Kate. She ordered a fizzy drink but a pint of ale was placed in front of her.
She glanced around the room, noting Heath’s drink which had somehow been
swapped with hers. The waiter was clearly not paying attention. Heath wondered
if he’d finally lost his mind as the girl’s stare intensified. She looked back
at the barman. Oblivious to being studied, Kate’s double wore a jaunty beret on
her dark hair and had a colourful smile on her lips as her friends toasted her
birthday.
‘Happy eighteenth Katarina!’ they yelled in
unison.
Heath remembered the date. He was reminded
every year.
In that moment, he hesitated to approach
her and instead, glanced down at his paper. Moments later, as Heath read
wearily beside the fire, a voice said, ‘I think we’ve been given the wrong
drink.’
Heath could not resist a question as he
looked up at her shiny adolescent face and she replaced the cocktail glass in
front of him with the ale.
‘You’re not… it can’t be… Kate Spencer’s
daughter?’
‘Kate? Oh, you mean my mother Kate?’
‘Yes.’
‘I suppose so. I’m Katarina Hunt. This is
my birthday, obviously,’ the girl said, glancing back at her friends who
hovered near the bar.
‘I know,’ Heath said, surprised anyone
would think he could forget such a thing.
‘My father and I live just across the
Heath. I’ve seen your photograph in the newspaper. You must be…my uncle?’
Her statement was so loaded Heath didn’t
know where to begin.
‘Yes. You…you are my son’s cousin.’
‘My cousin… that’s right… big family secret,
no one speaks about it. None of the family even speaks to each other, clearly.
How is it possible you don’t look a day over thirty?’
‘It’s…the dark,’ Heath replied.
She made a joke of it as only the young
can. She was looming at the table now and had the audacity to pat his dog on
its shaggy head. Heath’s pet beamed from all her attention, a fact that Heath
found mildly irritating.
‘Do I… do I look like my mother?’ the
teenage girl said as the fire flickered.
And then it occurred to Heath, that instead
of answering he could make her an offer she’d find difficult to refuse. After
all, it was not too late and it was the girl’s right to meet her cousin and see
her mother’s childhood home.
‘Why don’t you come back with me… to
Hareton Hall? Her portrait remains on the wall. I’m headed there now. You can
meet your cousin. There are also some photographs you might never have seen
from…before. I’m sure your…father…won’t mind.’
Katarina’s eyes flashed and Heath saw a
great deal of Kate’s personality once again. It almost scared him, but not
quite.
‘Heel,’ he said to his dog who’d started
yapping excitedly (again) and was obviously beside himself at the smell of new
company.
‘Behave yourself,’ Heath growled.
‘Well, my friends…’
Katarina glanced back to the bar as the
tall girl with blonde hair wandered over and gave Heath a bemused smile.
Katarina introduced them to each other.
‘Oh, so this is your uncle, Katty?’ the girl
asked in disbelief, as if to say, yeah,
right, he’s way too young and hot.
‘Kind of…we’ve only just met…’
Katarina’s friend stifled a giggle as if
she didn’t believe her but either way, she didn’t care. If Katty wanted to chat
to this hot older man, that was her affair.
‘Well, the night is young and so are we but
we have to be going, early game tomorrow and all that. Are you coming with us
Kat?’
At that moment Heath wore his most amiable
expression.
Katarina knew she might only get this one
chance to discover all she could about the people she’d only seen once or twice
in old photographs.
The man in front of her was young and
extremely handsome, yet so hard and cold. Something in her desired to visit his
world, meet the cousin she’d never met as a child, see the house where her
mother had been raised, learn the secret her family had kept for a generation.
‘No,’ Kate said. Then she looked at Heath
and added, ‘I’m coming with you…’
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